Point of no return for county jail

Belknap County faces Aug. 15 stop-work deadline

By ROGER AMSDEN, for THE LACONIA DAILY SUN

LACONIA — A shutdown of work on the 18,000-square-foot Community Community Corrections Center will have to take place by the middle of August if inmates are to remain in the current jail.

That was the conclusion reached by the Jail Planning Committee when it met Tuesday morning at the Belknap County complex to weigh options available to Belknap County Commissioners in the event a $229,5000 supplemental appropriation they are seeking is not approved by the Belknap County Delegation.

The request includes $136,500 for the Corrections Department and $93,000 for the Sheriff’s Department. It now looks like the delegation will take that request up when it meets on May 22 to hear a request from the county-owned Gunstock Mountain Resort for a revenue anticipation note.

Belknap County Corrections Superintendent Keith Gray has said that without the four additional corrections officers cut from his budget by the delegation he will not be able open the corrections center and operate it safely.

The supplemental appropriation proposal calls for hiring three corrections officers on July 1 and another on Sept. 1.

Dave DeVoy, (R-Sanbornton), chairman of the county commission and also the chairman of the Jail Planning Committee, said, “the drop-dead date is Aug. 15,” after having been told by Andre Kloetz of Bauen Construction that is the date that work has to start on removing a women’s bathroom in the old wing. The space will then be filled with a new air exchange system. Once that occurs, the old wing of the jail would no longer have sufficient bathroom facilities for female inmates.

He asked Kloetz about the last possible date for keeping prisoners in the old section of the jail due to written concerns brought forward by Commissioner Hunter Taylor (R-Alton), who suggested that renovations may need to be put on hold in order to avoid putting the county in a situation where women prisoners would need to be transferred to another county jail.

Superintendent Gray has said that without the new officers, parts of the current jail would need to remain in use and that female prisoners would have to be transferred to another county, which would cost $34,500 a month.

DeVoy said at Tuesday’s meeting that, from his perspective, if the center does not open he would prefer that all of the staff remain in the old facility. That would mean that work would also have to be put off on two of the office spaces slated for renovation.

He said he still hopes to be able to hold an open house prior to the May 22 vote to which local selectmen would be invited as well as state legislators.

DeVoy said that he is certain that at least six members of the county delegation will support the supplemental appropriation and is looking to convince three more to support it.

He said that he wants to open the corrections center this fall and is willing to wait until Oct. 1 to hire new officers, which he said would cost $74,000 instead of the $136,5000 sought by Superintendent Gray.

But he said that he is not sure that the other commissioners will support his position, and that stopping work on the facility is very much a possibility if the supplemental appropriation is not approved.